Mystic Isles of the South Seas Part 24

"Mais, I gave you three francs for the fish, n'est-ce pas?"

"Mais, vous don' lai moi t'ree franc, oui, oui," answered the Chinese. "Moi don'lai canaque po po'sson."

The governor had led in the chorus of sacres and diables. All at the table were of the redingote family, all feeding from the national trough at Paris, and they had the courage and power to end the d.a.m.nable imposition on the slender purses of Papeete citizens. Sapristi! this robbery must cease. He must go slow, however. Being an honest and unselfish man, he investigated and initiated legislation so carefully and tardily that the remedy for the evil was applied only four days ago. He had returned to France, so one could not say that he consulted his own purse; but the present governor, an amiable man and a good bridge-player, also liked fish, and they pay no bonanza salaries, the French. The fishermen had known, of course, of the approaching end of their piracy, but, like Tahitians, waited until necessity for action. The official paper in which all laws are published had the ordinance set out in full. Translated, briefly, from the French, it ran like this:

That the Governor of the establishments of France in Oceania, a chevalier of the Legion of Honor [this information is inserted in every degree, announcement and statement the governor makes, and stares at one from a hundred trees], in view of the "article du decret du 21 decembre, 1885," etc. [and in view of a dozen other articles of various dates since], considering that fish is the basis of the alimentation of the Tahitians, that in the Papeete public market, fish has been monopolized with the result that its price has been raised steadily, and a situation created injurious to the working people, the cost of living necessitating a constant increase in salaries, orders that after a date fixed, fish be sold by weight and at the following prices per kilo, according to the kind of fish:

30 cents a kilo 25 cents a kilo 20 cents a kilo 1st category 2d category 3d category

Aahi Auhopu Ature Ahuru Au aavere Atoti

Anae Ioio Aoa-Ropa Apai Mahimahi Faia Ava Moi Fee Lihi Nato Fai Mu Nape Honu Nanue Orare Inaa Oeo Paere Maere Paaihere Parai Maito Paraha peue Puhi pape Marara Tehu Tohe veri Manini Varo Taou Mao Oura (chevrette) Uhi Mana Paapaa (crabs) Ume Ouma Oura-miti (langouste) Vau Oiri Roi Pahoro Tuhura Patia Puhu miti Pahua Tapio

As a kilo is two and a fifth pounds, the ature that Joseph caught by the Quai de Commerce, being in the third category, would cost, under the ukase, less than ten cents a pound. Crabs being in the first category--paapaa,--would cost about thirteen cents a pound, and the succulent varo the same, whereas they were then two francs, or forty cents a pound. We lovers of sea centipedes toasted the brave governor vociferously.

The decrees were nailed to the trees on the Broom Road, in the rue de Rivoli, and in the market-place. The populace were joyous, though some old wholesale buyers like Lovaina questioned the wisdom of the governor's edict and the effect on themselves.

"If they do that," said she, "maybe, by'n'by they fix my meal or lime squash."

Until the date of carrying out the mandate, one picked out a pleasing fish or string of fish, all nicely wrapped in leaves, and one asked, "A hia? How much?"

When Lovaina inquired the price, she smiled her sweetest, rubbed the saleslady's back, and uttered some joke that made her sway with laughter, so that price became of no importance. But a sour-faced white or a pompous bureaucrat paid her saving, and Chinese, who kept the restaurants, invoked the curse of barrenness upon the venders.

The day came for the new scheme of fish-selling to go into effect. The mayor, a long-bearded and shrewd druggist, had bought up all the half-way accurate scales in the city, for there had not been a balance in the market. Everything was by strings, bunches, feels, and hefts. The fish counters, polished by the guardian of the marche, were now brilliant with the s.h.i.+ny apparatus.

The long-awaited morning found a crowd peeping through the railing half an hour earlier than usual. All would have a fill of delicacies. Lovaina with the Dummy drove down to the Annexe for me. Vava was making queer signs to her which either were unintelligible or which she thought absurd. She waved her long forefinger before him, which meant: "Don't talk foolishness. I am not a fool."

We reached the market-place when only a score or two had gathered.

A thousand devils! there was not a fish on the slabs. The merry wives were absent. The condition was plain.

The Dummy uttered a demoniacal grunt, and shook his head and hands before Lovaina in accusation. She answered him with a movement of her head up and down, which signified acquiescence.

"Dummy know," she said mysteriously. "That Vava he find everything. He like old-time tahutahu, sorcerer. He tell me Annexe no fish. He say now no fish till finish those masheen."

She laughed and rubbed my shoulders.

"The fish slip away," she said, "and leave only their scales! Aue!"

M. Lontane, the second in command of the gendarmes, was sent scouting, and reported to the governor--not the one who originated the manifesto--that the famine was the result of an organized revolt against the law and order of the land. Fishermen he had questioned, replied simply, "Aita faito, paru! Aita hoo, paru!" Which, holy blue! meant, "No scales, fis.h.!.+ No price, fis.h.!.+"

What to do? One cannot make a horse drink unless one gives him red peppers to eat. Even the Government could not make a fisherman fish for market, as there was a law against enforced labor except as punishment for crime or in emergencies, such as during the existence of martial law, the guarding against a conflagration, or a tidal wave or cyclone. At the Cercle Militaire many of the bureaucrats, and especially the doctor who had treated the cow-boy, were for martial law, anyway. Napoleon knew, said the fierce medecin. "A whiff of grapeshot, and the reef would be again gleaming with lights, and the diligences would pour in with loads of fish."

Doctor Ca.s.siou, a very old resident, and not at all fierce, asked his confrere against whom would the grapeshot be directed. Would he gather the fishermen from all over Tahiti, and decimate them, the way the Little Corporal purged mutiny out of his regiments? Lontane was sent out again. In the Cerele Bougainville he took a rum punch before starting on his bicycle, and he swore by his patron saint, Bacchus, that he would solve the problem even if denied the remedy of force majeure.

Within three hours of his return from Patutoa, a meeting was called of the council of state, the governor, the doctors, the druggist, a merchant or two, and a lawyer, and before it M. Lontane disclosed that the natives were possessed by a new devil that he feared was a recrudescence of the ancient struggle for independence.

Each fisherman he had examined refused to answer his interrogations, saying only, "I dobbebelly dobbebelly."

The governor scratched his ear, and the mayor wiggled his hands behind, as he had on the wharf after the battle of the limes, coal, and potatoes. The lawyer said it must be an incantation, but that it was not Tahitian, for that language had no "d" in its alphabet. M. Lontane and all his squad were given peremptory orders to unriddle the enigma.

Meanwhile the fishless market continued. It was not entirely fishless, for before the bell rang we would see over the railings a few handfuls of varos, crayfish, and shrimps and perhaps a dozen small baskets of oysters. A policeman prevented a riot, but could not stay the rush when the bell rang and the gate was opened. The lovers of sh.e.l.lfish and the servants of the well-to-do s.n.a.t.c.hed madly at the small supply, and paid whatever extravagant price was demanded. The scales were never touched, and any insistence upon the new legal plan and price was laughed at. With these delicacies beyond their means, the natives stormed the two pork butchers, the Tinitos. They grabbed the chops and lumps of pig, poking and kneading them, shouting for their weight, and in some instances making off without paying. There was such a howdy-do that extra policemen were summoned to form all into line.

There were no scaly fish, and it came out that the sh.e.l.lfish were caught by women, widows who had no men to obey or please, who had children, or who wanted francs to buy gewgaws or tobacco; and a few unsocial men fishers who did not abide by the common interests of their group.

At Lovaina's we were on a tiresome round of canned salmon, eggs, and beef, and eggs rose to six sous each. In about a fortnight we began to have fish as usual, and Lovaina signed to me that the Dummy procured them in the country. I was very curious, and asked if I might accompany him. She said that he would call for me at the Annexe the next time he went.

I was awakened after midnight in my room--the doors were never locked--by the Dummy leaning over and shaking me. I opened my eyes, and he put his fingers to his lips. I dressed, and went with him in the old surrey. We drove through the night along the Broom Road. Once past the cemetery we were in the country. The cocoanut-trees were gray ghosts against the dark foliage and trunks of the breadfruits and the sugar cane; the reef was a faint gleam of white over the lagoon and a subdued sound of distant waters.

We jogged along, and as we approached Fa'a, I lit a match and looked at my watch. It was nearly two o'clock. The Dummy stopped the horse at Kelly's dance-hall in a palm grove. The building was of bamboo and thatch, with a smooth floor of Oregon pine, and was a former himene house. Kelly had rented it from the church authorities. The dancing was over for the night, but a few carts were in the grove, and the lights were bright. We went inside, and found forty or fifty Tahitians, men and women, squatting or sitting on the floor, while on the platform was Kelly himself, with his accordion on the table. He saw me and shouted "Ia ora na!" And after a few minutes, while others came, began to speak. What he said was interpreted by a Frenchman, who, to my astonishment, proved to be the editor of one of those anti-government papers printed in San Francisco, that Ivan Stroganoff had shown me.

Kelly addressed the audience, "Fishermen and fellow stiffs." He said that the fish strike was a success, and if they all remained true to one another, they would win, and the scales would be kicked out. The few scabs who sold fish in the market only made sore those unable to buy. He said that he had found out that the law applied only to the market-place, and that a plan would be tried of hawking fish from house to house in Papeete. They would circ.u.mvent the governor's proclamation in that way. He praised their fort.i.tude in the struggle, and after the editor had interpreted stiffs by te tamaiti aroha e, which means poor children, and scabs by iore, which means rats, and had ended with a peroration that brought many cries of "Maitai! Good!" Kelly took up his accordion, and began to play the sacred air of "Revive us Again!"

He led the singing of his version:

"Hallelujah! I'm a b.u.m! Hallelujah! b.u.m again!

Hallelujah! Give us a hand-out! To save us from sin!"

The Tahitians rocked to and fro, threw back their heads, and, their eyes shut as in their religious himenes, chorused joyfully:

"Hahrayrooyah! I'm a boom! Hahrayrooyah! Boomagay!

Hahrayrooyah! Hizzandow! To tave ut fruh tin!"

They sang the refrain a dozen times, and then Kelly dismissed the meeting with a request for "three cheers for the I. W. W."

There is no "w" in French or in Tahitian, and the interpreter said, "Ruperupe ah-ee dohblevay dohblevay!" And the Tahitians: "Ai dobbebelly dobbebelly!"

Kelly came down from the platform, his freckled face s.h.i.+ning and his eyes serious but twinkling. He greeted me as the natives lit cigarettes and filed out.

"I'm runnin' their strike for them," he said. "It 's on the square. The poor fis.h.!.+ They don't make hardly enough to pay for their nets, let alone an honest day's pay, and they're up half the night and takin'

chances with the sharks and the devil-fish. They have to pay market dues and all sorts of taxes. They 're good stiffs all right, and every one has a members.h.i.+p card in the I. W. W. applied for."

When we went outside, I saw that the Dummy who had been a witness of the scene in the hall, had a large package of fish in the surrey, and all around there were other packages of them. The men had been selling to those who came to Fa'a for them, the law extending only to the market in Papeete.

The strikers hawked the fish in town the next day, but this was immediately forbidden. Hungry for fish--the Tahitians have one word meaning all that--though the people were, few could drive out to Fa'a to fetch them. Within Papeete fish were mysteriously nailed to the trees at night, and over each was a card with the letters, "I. W. W."

Again a meeting of the council of state was called, and at it M. Lontane revealed the meaning of those cabalistic letters and the leaders.h.i.+p of Kelly. He had tracked down the fishermen and found their headquarters at the dance hall.

At the Cercle Bougainville there was an uproar. Merchants drank twice their stint of liquor in their indignation. Syndicalism was invading their sh.o.r.es, and their already limited labor supply would be corrupted.

I could not picture too seriously the wrath of the honest traders at the traitorous conduct of Kelly, "a white man," as told by M. Lontane. I was upbraided because of Kelly being an American with an Irish name. Lying Bill said it was "A b.l.o.o.d.y Guy Fawkes plot."